Chinese City Takes Desperate Measures to Stop Jaywalkers

Different local governments in Chinese cities have long been experimenting with various tactics to prevent pedestrians from jaywalking. From shaming offenders to imposing ridiculous punishments, traffic authorities have tried and failed, to keep the dangerous habit controlled.

Similar to Shenzhen city’s shaming tactic of placing offenders’ images on a huge screen, the city of Wuhan will also broadcast jaywalkers’ faces, but will incorporate an additional obstacle to discourage illegal street crossing, Shanghaiist reports.

Local authorities in Wuhan have installed six automatic safety gates on sidewalks, similar to those usually found in subway stations.

Designed to automatically open and close every time the color of the traffic lights change from green to red, the gates will force impatient pedestrians to wait for the right time to cross the street.

Should offenders choose to ignore the gates, monitoring cameras will capture images of such individuals and their images will be shown on a large screen at the intersection.

Jaywalking in China is a problem that is seen to contribute heavily to traffic jams in China’s busy areas. Observers believe that the issue is a cultural problem, with Chinese state media attributing jaywalking to citizens’ lack of principles and disregard for rule of law.

“We Chinese do not care about traffic lights. We run red lights in groups. This is the Chinese-style street crossing,” a netizen commented on the issue.

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